NASA MODIS Image of the Day: July 19, 2011 – Rare Snow in Atacama Desert, Chile
Ordinarily, the flashes of white in South America’s Atacama Desert rise from salt pans.
But on July 7, 2011, when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite acquired these images, the white came from a far rarer commodity: snow.
Starting on July 3 and lasting several days, a cold front dumped up to 80 centimeters of snow (32 inches) on the driest desert in the world, reported BBC News. The images above show the largest snowfall the region has witnessed in a half-century. The top image is a false-color image, and includes both visible and infrared light in order to help distinguish between snow and clouds. Snow is dark red, while clouds are lighter shades of orange and white. When the cursor is rolled over the false-color image, a natural color image is revealed. A few clouds hang over the white desert, marring the view slightly. How rare was the heavy snow? Parts of the Atacama Desert receive just 1 to 3 millimeters of precipitation per year (the local average is 50 mm, or 2 inches). This storm should skew the averages for some time. Along with the snowfall, the winter storm also brought temperatures of -8.5C (17.6F) to Santiago, Chile. Parts of Uruguay and Argentina also coped with freezing temperatures. Several major copper mines were shuttered and overland transportation was snarled due to the snow, heavy rains, and flooding, according to news reports. More than 5,000 people had to abandon their homes in northern Chile, as many roofs in the desert region are not designed to withstand rain. In this image, Chile is in the west, Bolivia in the northeast and Argentina in the southeast.
